These Make Humanity
by Rantipole
Summary: When it comes to first times for her, they see it as mistakes. To others, they see it as experiences. When it comes to the first glance, demigod dream, duel, kiss, quest, everything else, it all connects back to Pallas Jackson. Fem!Percy/? One-shot collection
1. Dreams

When she was only seven years old, she woke up in the body of a dead friend one night. Of course, back then she had no clue who the older girl was to even consider her a friend. She had to be at least a pre-teen, her uneven and spiked hair the shade of pure black. She was tall, with strong features, with blue eyes that were that rare color of lightning you see during raging thunderstorms.

She reminded her of those heroines that her mother would tell her of in her stories. In her black punk attire, she glared defiantly at the beasts chasing them, as if daring them to hurt her companions.

As the lightning flashes ahead of them, she can see the pale oval of her face, so young, so beautiful, so rebellious. So _alive_.

Her name was Thalia.

The weather flapped on them, as if it were letting off someone else's anger. The earth shook beneath her feet, causing her to loose her footing multiple times. Shadows were moving quickly upon them, but once they passed through the threshold to the camp, they would be safe.

With the adrenaline pumping through her, it was the adventure she wanted, the heat, but she kept those thoughts inside as she grasped onto a little girl's hand.

The hills were slippery, thanks to the rain that poured down viciously. Combine that and the thundering steps of the earth-shaking monsters, and the group of four were running down clumsily like drunkards.

Ahead of her, a blond boy was gaining speed to a goat-legged kid, his bronze weapon giving off light in the never ending darkness. He was panting as heavily as the rest as he smacked away at the foliage that obscured their path.

She gave the small blonde a reassuring squeeze, her throat tight with emotion she refused to let out. "Almost there, Annabeth," she muttered urgently. She swallowed thickly. "Almost there...just a little more to go..."

Suddenly, the goat-like boy cried out in relief. "There it is!" he announced. "Were almost at Camp!"

Thalia kept surging forward, not letting her get ahead of herself. She knew this was going to end well.

Almost immediately after, a roar ripped through the air. It was followed by the sound of something large being uprooted, and all of a sudden she found a tree hurtling towards them. She sucked in breath, and the blond boy hollered, "Look out!"

She threw the little girl—_Annabeth?_—to the ground with her, and the blond boy ducked, too. But the other, who was still distracted by the fact they were so close to a safe haven, realized the warning said a little too late. The tree slammed into him, bringing out a scream from him as his legs were pinned under the trunk.

Annabeth ripped herself out of the tight grip and flung herself to the tree, pulling uselessly at the branches. "Grover!" she wailed. "Luke, help him!"

Luke pushed himself off the ground and stood beside the immobilized boy. "Grover, are you okay?"

Grover tugged at his legs and clawed at the ground, trying to pry his way out. "My leg!" he said, frantic. "It's stuck!"

Thalia still stood in the place where Annabeth left her, rooted to the spot. Her body was tense, ready for action that was sure to come. In the distance, she could make out the faint outlines lumbering towards them at a rapid pace. Another howl bounced off the trees, which finally caused her to spring into action. Grasping onto whatever little courage she could find, she faced her friends. "Keep going; I'll hold them off."

"No, Thalia," Luke protested immediately. He limped over to her with Grover hanging off his shoulder. "They'll kill you."

In response, she slung off her bag and tossed it to him. Without taking her eyes off of the duo of monsters, she moved to stand protectively in front of the group. "Go, Luke!" she ordered. "Go! I'll be right behind you!"

Without any other arguments, she unsheathed her dagger and charged bravely forward. As she glanced behind her one last time, Annabeth was unmoving from her place as the other two started running. "Annabeth, come on!" she heard vaguely.

The monsters pushed away the topmost branches with more ease than Luke had earlier. It amazed and annoyed her that something so huge could do such simple acts with even more facility than she could. "Stay back!" Thalia screamed as she backed away from them. She whimpered the smallest bit as she stumbled over a fallen tree branch, but instantly got back up. She glared up at them, taunting them silently. She slashed her knife forward as one of the giants tried to swat at her.

"Thalia, come one!" Luke pleaded as she twirled away from them. Before she could even go three steps, she felt something a enclose around the collar of her leather jacket. She felt the scream that had been lodged in her throat let loose as she soared through the air in the opposite direction she wanted to go gracelessly. She could see the fading figures of Luke and Grover pulling Annabeth back as she screamed in unison with her. "_NO!_ THALIA!"

She was surprised when only a gasp escaped her when she flung into the ground. Her teeth jarred together and she scrunched up her face, tight with pain. Of course, her head had to slam right up against a rock. Her eyes snapped open as she heard the thunder, her breath coming in short, barely audible pants.

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but instead, her last breath came out in a puff of mist. She released the tension from her body as her head lolled uselessly to the side, causing the single tear to run down her dirtied face, leaving a skinny path down her cheek.

The ground beneath her still body started to inch up her clothing. The grass stretched up and latched itself to her body similar to a magnet, little flowers wounding themselves through the chains and band buttons of her jacket. Thin, though rapidly growing roots twined around the locks of her unruly hair and her fingers. The colorful underbrush completely enveloped her until her body was just a mere mound sticking out of the earth. Then the roots that had been wrapped around her body suddenly shot up into the sky, higher, higher still, until it seemed it could touch the heavens. The needles of the growing pine bursted to life like fireworks.

Like Thalia, Pallas could still smell the ozone thick in the air, feel the raindrops pelting her skin—_bark?_ It was only darkness, a nightmare black all around. She could still hear the murderous roars of the monsters as power emitted from Thalia, and barely make out the yell from one of the remaining three: "C'mon! Let's go!"

When she woke that night, somewhere near midnight, she thinks she woke up the whole apartment with her screams of complete, utter anguish. Her mother came in within seconds to comfort her, and every time she grazed her fingers over her daughter's scalp, the very place Thalia had hit her head, she would wince, imaging the pain stabbing once again.

The difference between reality and the dream was that the sun was up, there were no more winds knocking down everything, and Pallas was still breathing and human. And Thalia was gone.


	2. Bonds

To the son of Hephaestus, he saw fire as a being, a bright crimson gilded deity that lived to destroy. Like the monsters Leo lived to destroy himself, inferno was the beast that made everything bow down before it and changes everything in an instant, taking away what you thought was flawless.

He supposed he can say the same for the sea. Despite the differences, they worked together in a familiar way; brutal beauty and destructive power.

He knew this just by looking at Pallas Jackson. Every time she moved her head, Leo had difficulty composing a final image for the daughter of Poseidon. In profile, her nose seemed sharp and her lips thin. At three-quarters, her cheeks were full and high, almost Asian. When looking directly at him, her teal eyes overwhelmed everything else. It seemed to him that, like the waves, her face shifted with the light, leaving nothing solid behind. Her dark curls were chopped short—evenly unlike Piper's jagged braids—so they bounced just shy from her shoulders. A swimmer's build, lithe and strong, _she's tall, too_, he noted as she and Annabeth hugged, noticing she was just about an inch or two to Annabeth's 5'7.

With most beautiful girls he spared a glance at—_stared at_, his mind corrected—he usually fell head over heels. Thalia was a good example of this, and some of the Campers. But this wasn't the case with Pallas. He knew in an instant this was someone he would risk his life for and she would do the same. The kind of sibling bond he was never allowed to experience. She had that kind of air around her when she reconciled with her best friend, and around the two people she was with earlier. Protectiveness. Familial love. Exactly like the little girl he saw back at Camp, poking around at the hearth's flames.

Leo could suppose that the whole _'opposites attract'_ quote now made sense to him. Fire and water, they were. But there were similarities that Pallas liked to pick out whenever he brought this little fact up; _unrestrained, preternatural, alive._

They brought what couldn't possibly be allies together. Just by the mere act of them forming a special kind of sibling bond, they combined the water and fire.

Watching as the flames streaked above him and the sea churn below him, they became as he became. The rest of their destiny was scorched into them, branding heart and soul.


	3. Don't

_Do not fall in love with me because I will break you. I am_ _not whole, I am many jagged pieces with sharp edges that will cause you to bleed if you dare come too close.  
_

* * *

"I'm sorry for losing it back at the ride."

If Lee Fletcher hadn't seen her lips move he would have thought he imagined the apology. He was tired, leaning up against the wall of the the Kindness International truck. He had been shifting his concentration from the albino lion that was staring at him hungrily and Pallas as she striked up a consoling conversation with the zebra. She sat up from her place in front of its cage and walked over to him, plopping down to his left and slumping pathetically down the wall.

"Actually, it was kinda funny," he chuckled. He's never seen Pallas freak out before; the way her teal eyes had widened and horrified face had, for a moment, made him laugh hysterically. Usually, she kept stoic and never revealed any emotions, if any at all.

She, Annabeth, and Grover glared at him.

Pallas smacked her palm against his chest. "I hate snakes," she mumbled.

Rubbing the sore spot and pouting, he glanced at her warily. "It's because of Medusa's tale, right?" Lee remembered how Medusa had been solely focused on Pallas more so than the others, complimenting her repeatedly before she revealed who she really was. "When she got cursed and became practically a snake-lady."

Pallas looked down at her lap. For some reason, guilt was etched deeply into her face. But when she spoke, anger laced through her sharp words.

"Medusa gets the shaft from the Fates, overall. She starts out as a beautiful priestess to Athena who gets raped by my dad and ends up being cursed for it as if it were all her fault. The result from that is that she's basically doomed to live eternally without any contact, human or animal. Then she's hunted down for her head by a demigod and by then depicted as a horrible monster for defending herself from people out to kill her.

"Not to mention all of that went down while she was pregnant with the twins, Pegasus and Chrysaor, who were the results from the rape. Perseus would mount Pegasus and use him and Medusa's head to kill a sea monster, which after that he gains a wife, Andromeda. Athena also gave Perseus the mirrored shield he used to slay her. Used to glorify and aid her killers and betrayers, no wonder she seemed so keen to gain her revenge to Poseidon through me."

Lee studied the powerful, younger girl. He doesn't know why, though he could suppose as this goes for all demigods, but she was always as jagged as her words. She never let anyone close enough to her, as if she were afraid if she got too attached then they would be ripped away from her. Kind of like the curse of Calypso he had heard about, once she fell in love with the hero that landed stranded on her island, they would then have to leave, because they always had people to come back to. It amazed him that Pallas hadn't started cracking yet.

* * *

_Do not fall in love with me because I will never be able to show how much I care for you. I will try, yet fail, and you will be left to wonder why my smile does not match my words._

* * *

Lee and Annabeth watched Pallas with glassy eyes. She curled up into a protective ball at the mast of the ship, atop the mound of shredded ropes that had supposed to keep her in place. She threaded her slender fingers through her dark curls and tugged on them viciously. "I never realized," she whispered harshly. "How could I have been so _stupid_."

"How powerful the temptation was, you mean?" Annabeth wrapped Pallas up into her comforting arms, and for once she didn't shy away.

"I saw how you brought together your family," Lee spoke up. He looked at her guiltily through his blonde lashes. "How you reconciled with them, both mortal and immortal."

"It's a stupid thing to desire," she spat. She shook out of Annabeth's hold and stalked off to her rightful position at the wheel of the _Queen Anne's Revenge_. "My grandparents died way before I was even a thought to mom. Amphitrite and Triton would never get along with her anyways. They barely tolerate me."

Lee glared at her back. He hated how she never gave in to her feelings, only bottled them up tightly, only to explode later. Looking at Annabeth's hurt face, he could tell she felt the same way. There had been plenty of memorable times when Pallas had let her composed and cold facade slip willingly, but then she'd built it right back up with double the protection, like she had made the mistake of revealing herself naked to the world, bare and raw and vulnerable. Whenever they had talking meaningfully, he had always wondered why she looked as if she never meant her reassuring words that their friendship stood true. He believed the power of her words, but he still wondered. And would wonder still.

* * *

_Do not fall in love with me because I am unpredictable. I will laugh, I will cry, I will be hurt by things that are stupid. I am like the ocean after a storm, and you are not a strong enough swimmer._

* * *

It scared Lee to the fact that Pallas, a mere, but strong, demigod could hold up the sky for so long. In his dream, he could only focus on the graying streaks standing out against the black of her hair, the blood that dripped down her chin from the bite on her bottom lip, the aggressive trembling of her limbs as she tried to keep standing up straight.

It had surprised him that she had been the one to attack the Manticore when he had advanced on little Nico di Angelo. Maybe she remembered him from their time at the Lotus Casino that felt like decades ago, or she felt the familial protectiveness that someone was threatening her family.

Maybe that was what made the immortals afraid of her. She was unpredictable, like the sea that ran through her veins. To be honest, he couldn't keep up with her either. One moment she was laughing at the humiliating expense to the victims of her sword during training and the next she was consoling the newbies about how their godly parent really did care for them, that they would be claimed.

Maybe that's the reason why he liked her. She was too powerful for him, but as an arrogant son of Apollo, he enjoyed the thrill of the challenge.

* * *

_Do not fall in love with me because I will love you back. Like the moon loves the stars, like the entire universe depends on it. I will love you, endlessly, and when you leave, I will still think about you when I'm supposed to be asleep._

* * *

Nico had called him back just this once before he permanently resided in Elysium. His siblings and friends surrounded the golden shroud, the heat of the flames drying the sticky tears tracking down their faces.

What made him regret his decision of answering Nico's call was seeing Pallas. She sat at the head of his burning shroud, staring with lifeless eyes up at the flames and smoke that mingled and swirled up to the welcoming skies. It was then he could confirm that she loved him back, after all these years the so-called Ice Queen really id have passionate feeling hidden deep and secretly beneath her protective shell.

The words she kept muttering uselessly were echoing through his head, as if mocking him for not listening to her orders of keeping safe and alive. It was the first time since Nico had left a year ago that she had showed her powerful emotions to everyone surrounding them. He could remember the destruction of war around them as she clawed at his chest, burying her face into his blood and dirt matted curls, pulling his lolling head into her lap.

Her closest friends sat in a protective half circle around her as the long held in tears from over the years finally spilled over, not questioning anything. Annabeth and Clarisse glared at the other campers that stared and sat at Pallas' sides. Silena had her arms around the younger girl's waist from behind as she herself cried, soaking the back and shoulder of Pallas' shirt. Beckendorf rubbed Silena's back as he sat between her and Annabeth, and the Stoll brother squeezed in at Silena's other side next to Clarisse. Lee's younger sister, Kayla, had her head in Pallas' lap, the latter's fingers ghosting over her curly flaxen locks the same shade as Lee's.

"You're okay. Breathe. Just breathe. Open your eyes. Come back. Its okay. Its over now. You're okay. Wake up. Please wake up. Don't do this to me. Don't do this to me. Don't do this to me. I love you so much. Come back."

* * *

_Do not fall in love with me._


	4. Madness

In a strange way, Frank admired Pallas' melancholy madness. She had the battle-worn look to her, with the pain in her eyes and the scars to match, but she had an aura of confidence that seemed real compared to others, and she held her chin up defiantly, her shoulders squared. When he had first seen her, carrying the hippy Juno away from the two Gorgons, she seemed void of all emotions. During the dinners, however, when a son of Apollo had come up to her to introduce himself, tears gathered in her eyes as he said his name - _Leander_.

_I had a...friend named Lee, _she had said hesitantly as Hazel tried comfort her. _He was a son of Apollo, too. I think - _she knitted her brows, and looked frustrated thanks to her amnesia. _I think he died in a - a battle. _

She was a strange girl, Frank could gather up that much. But even compared to Dakota - the son of literal insanity - her way of talking to herself, near-fatal plans, and everything else was graceful in her own Pallas way. He had found this out once she had started to come out from behind her heavy barriers, finally laughing and smiling like a regular teenagrer should.

_I'm about as graceful as a newborn deer_, she had sighed when he had voiced his thoughts, not up for the fight. She scuffed the toe of her shoe against the concrete of the roof, and sent up a thin layer of dust. _I'm like a hurricane. _She smiled at her little joke, being the daughter of Neptune - or Poseidon, as he had found out last night - after all. _A hurricane at the center of a collapsing, burning building; I'm not someone to be admired at all._

_Are you sure you're not a Legacy of Apollo? _Hazel had asked as she climbed back up to the roof to join them. _You're always quoting people. I can't even tell anymore if it's your own words or theirs._

Pallas had stared back down at the monsters calling out for them. A little sneer tugged at her mouth, and she whipped the water from the hose to drench the monsters. _Maybe I am, _she answered once she was done with her fun antagonizing the monsters. _It would make sense; my mother loves to write and draw, and my grandmother's name was Laura, which is similar to Laurel, one of Apollo's sacred plants. She even had the sporty, blonde and blue-eyed look to her. She loved to draw, too. I heal relatively faster than normal, and I seem to have limited clairvoyance, as I also have more prophetic dreams than I should. _Then she smiled cheekily at Frank. _But I absolutely suck at archery._

_But back to the topic on me being a victim to Bacchus. 'I don't know if I descend into madness, as descend implies some fraction of control.' _Pallas smirked, and Frank knew she was quoting someone again. _'When I go to the depths of crazy_, _I tumble and freefall with flailing arms and not a hint of grace.'_

_Who are you quoting this time? _Frank had asked.

Pallas pulled an offended look. _Who says I was quoting? Maybe that inspiring piece of work was of my own mind._

Both Frank and Hazel sent her a look.

_Tyler Knott Greyson,_ she muttered, looking down in shame.

When she had jumped into Tartarus after her best friend, Frank thought she had truly gotten mad. The poem she had muttered while they learned of the Doors of Death echoed again and again throughout his muddled mind, battling and coming out victorious against the vioces of Mars and Ares. It was scary how fitting the poem was to the tragic events that followed the Mark of Athena, and Frank couldn't help but wonder if Boethius had been one of the more powerful demigods of Apollo, one of the few rare ones that could prophecise the future. It was as if he found their quest an amusing and tragic tale and had fitted it into his book, _The Consolation of Philosophy_, for the mortals' pleasure, like they would never know.

_To you this tale refers,_  
_Who seek to lead your mind_  
_Into the upper day,_  
_For he who overcomes should_  
_Turn back his gaze_  
_Toward the Tartarean cave,_  
_Whatever excellence he takes with him,_  
_He loses when he looks below._


	5. Alright

**Before I get started, I just want to say that I'm quickly running out of ideas. I'm thinking of doing Zoë next, but after that I'm lost. I just want to know if any of you have an idea, please, don't be afraid to say it. Just as long as I can work with it, and you name the character P.O.V. you want it of, like Beckendorf, and the idea of the plot. If you want another pairing, I'll try to fit it in.**

**I owe nothing. Love you all - Rantipole.**

* * *

Pallas walked slowly along the crescent of Montauk beach, smiling a little as waves lapped across the shore and winds created miniature sand clouds. There wasn't many people there; it was too cold. The only people out were Pallas Jackson and her mother, Sally, who was basking in the warmth of the fire, reading a Nora Roberts book, _Carolina Moon_, Pallas thought it was called. It was only them on the windy beach. Them, and a man.

He was sitting on a folding stool, his paintbrush flying back and forth on the canvas. Pallas stopped walking and sat on one of the rocks jutting out the sand, a respectable distance away from the man. He didn't seem to be aware of his single audience. There was something familiar about him, something about the shine of his sunlit locks that were just as wavy as the sunbeams Pallas drew in her Kindergarden doodles of the smiling, sunglasses-wearing sun. She sat there silently, watching, observing the tanned man.

After about five minutes of impatiently tapping her bare feet and drawing meaningless designs in the sand - she _was_ ADHD, after all - she stood up abruptly and walked up to him, behind and to the side, so she could get a clear view of his watercolor painting. She knitted her brows and looked from the sea to the painting, looking for the white and blue sails that obscured the middle of the canvas. Pallas scuffled closer, near enough for the artist to finally take notice of her. He flashed her a broad, blinding white smile like he had been expecting her, and turned back to his paints, small dimples still showing.

They said nothing to each other. Pallas continued to watch his pointed strokes and weaves of the paintbrush between his long, pianist fingers. He seemed to be giving off warmth, that must have been why he was wearing only a creamy button-down and shorts, Pallas thought, compared to her sweater and capris. She couldn't tell what color his eyes were because of the dark sunglasses, but she could tell at glance that he was a very handsome man - boy. He looked only seventeen, nineteen years old, but he towered over her with his great height, so of course he looked like a man to her.

"Do you like to draw?" he asked. Pallas looked up; he'd taken off his sunglasses. They were the same cerulean of the sky, the same shade of blue that was her mother's eyes when she was truly happy.

The seven-year-old hummed. "When I have nothing to do, and that's often."

The man smiled. "What do you like to draw?"

Pallas pointed over to the water that swam against the mounds of pebbles. "The pretty girls in the water over there. Or the other animals I see in the water, like the fish-ponies."

The man smiled again. "Do you want to draw with me?" He held out a small sketchpad and pencil, as it was obvious she wasn't going away from a while. She reluctantly took the pad. She felt honored he had let her draw with him.

Pallas flicked through the old book. The drawings each seemed to be drawn by a different person for each page, the oldest at the front and youngest to the back. And they were all signed; they all seemed to have been written by an experienced hand, no matter how different the curves and sharp turns in their _g's_ or _y's_. A few of the older ones were by Halcyon Green, William Shakespeare, and Leonardo da Vinci. The most recent ones, however, were Lee Fletcher, Kayla Bowman, and Michael Yew.

Pallas kept flicking through the pages which seemed to never end until she was finally met with a blank, crisp white page. "Can I draw my fish-pony friend?"

"You can draw whatever you like," he said. Whatever you muse comes up with. "What's your fish-pony friend's name?"

"Iris," she said, without looking up. "Mama said it means rainbow, and he looks like one, so I named him that."

"Did you know that there's a goddess named Iris?" he inquired.

"Yup!" she said, popping the _p._ "Mama likes to tell me stories every night, about the gods. She promised she would tell me about Triton again tonight."

Apollo smiled. "Is he your favorite?"

"No," she said simply. She bit her tongue and erased something vigorously. "Poseidon is."

"Yeah, he's cool. Why is _he_ your favorite?"

Pallas paused. She knitted her brows and looked off to the ocean, like it would answer the question for her. "I think he's powerful than the others," she said quietly, as if she were afraid someone were to hear and punish her for it. Apollo supposed this was true, as Zeus was taking over as god of dramatics. "He controls more than half of the world and Zeus only has control over air. I also like the ocean, and my grandma and grandpa died in a plane."

"Those are good reasons, sweetheart," Apollo praised. He leaned over her shoulder to take a good look at the hippocampus. It was fine enough, not the best. She did good on the body and tail, it was just the head she was having problems with. "Good job. But make the top of the head a little more round, and make the neck longer."

Pallas nodded in thanks and started to erase the head again.

Apollo sighed inwardly as he watched his great-granddaughter work. It was the first time he has had the blood of the sea running through a sun legacy's veins, and he couldn't figure out of that would be a great save-the-Western-Civilization, or horrible end-of-Olympus problem.

_But Laura was a good kid_, he tried to reassure himself. _So's Sally._

Most of his children and legacies were.

Laura, the elegant, sharp-minded musician; Sally, the patient, steady author; Pallas, the edgy, quick-tempered gypsy.

_They would be alright._

"What's your name?"

Apollo pondered that for a moment. _Don't hurt yourself now_, he could imagine Artemis snarking. "Phoebus," he finally decided on. "Your's?"

Pallas looked up and shot Apollo a strange look. "Like Apollo. My name's Harpalyce." She scrunched up her nose in distaste. "I go by Pallas. I don't like my name."

Apollo tapped a finger to his chin.

"Harpalyce was the daughter of Harpalycus, king of the Amymnei in Thrace. Her mother died and her father suckled her from the teats of heifers and mares. He trained her as a warrior, intending for her to succeed him as ruler. When Neoptolemus, returning from Troy, attacked Harpalycus and severely wounded him, his daughter retaliated, putting the enemy to flight and saving her father. After her father's death at the hands of the rebellious people, Harpalyce took to plundering herds of cattle, taking advantage of her own ability to run outstandingly fast; eventually she was killed by a group of herdsmen as she got caught in a snare." Apollo paused. He chuckled at the disgusted look on her face. "Okay, so not the best name. But it has a good meaning. Somewhat."

Pallas giggled and went back to her drawing.

_They would be alright._


End file.
